Athletes, locked in competition, know how to play the ref.

For example, watch an upcoming NBA game. Sooner or later, a big, strong, talented player dribbling the ball will charge towards the basket, and a defensive opponent who is in his way.

The defender will tumble to the ground. And stay down to increase the tension. And finally, after lots of drama, he’ll get up to play the ref.

Sometimes the game-within-a-game works. And the ref calls a foul. Or better yet, dishes out a technical foul.

But this concept doesn’t just apply to sports. Recently, I’ve witnessed how the game becomes a form of soft censorship at a for-profit, privately-owned social media site called Nextdoor.

It’s an online platform where people in my neck of the woods communicate with one another on a variety of topics, including local issues. Folks in your area also join in at their local Nextdoor.

Of course, this social media powerhouse sets up rules against public shaming and disrespectful discourse, among other notable but potentially vague areas that get policed by participants who can report an alleged violation.

At some point, though, an allegation results in a post or comment being “hidden”, pending a potential appeal by the person who wrote the now-hidden words. And the appeal gets handled by local review team members, people in the community who have volunteered to serve as social referees.

There are all kinds of layers to this that I don’t want to dig up in this article. However, I want to offer some concrete examples of where I believe the refs got played.

Case 1:

A Hollywood, Florida, influencer wrote a post before she appeared before the Hollywood City Commission in December. She claimed that Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy won a landslide victory a month earlier.

A Nextdoor neighbor disagreed. The skeptic respectfully explained her position in a comment reacting to the post. At which point the woman who wrote the post blocked people from writing more comments.

Not deterred, the skeptical woman started her own post, explaining why she felt it was important to note that Mayor Levy got about 52% of the vote, compared to almost 48% for his opponents. Clearly, she argued, this was no landslide.

But then her post got “hidden”, allegedly for public shaming. She appealed, to no avail.

Case 2:

The Hollywood influencer posted comments all day on a thread that I wrote a day before the city commission meeting. My post was about a Florida Bulldog article detailing $100,000 in developer donations that a PAC got to support the mayor. But after speaking on behalf of a local issue dear to her, the woman apparently deleted all of her comments on my post. In black and white terms, sometimes possibly becoming disrespectful, she had defended the mayor.

Case 3:

I posted a comment contending the above-discussed pattern of behavior amounted to hide-and-seek, hit-and run communication.

Foul flag thrown. My comment was “hidden”.

I could go on, and ask detailed questions about how people become members of the review team, how they get trained, and whether Nextdoor corporate monitors local sites to make sure rules are enforced fairly and properly.

Clearly, not every “questionable” post or comment is treated equally. In contrast, a second Hollywood influencer took to Nextdoor to write that I’m “hateful”. Now, I didn’t flag the comment because that’s not how I am. I simply replied that she was engaging in “political hyperbole”. But I’ve been told that Nextdoor software may also “catch” offending content. And that other times it’s possible that review team members scour the digital ink writers produce to protect us from harm. So, was it acceptable for a person to trash talk me? The woman was appointed to a state Board by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. She also published an opinion piece in the Sun Sentinel recently endorsing the reelection of Hollywood Mayor Levy.

I think you get my point. I’m starting to realize that some Nextdoor dwellers hold nothing back, even while some influencial people post and delete and apparently flag content that they find offensive.

So, what should I do?

The simple answer is I’m writing this article for Democracy Chronicles. Why? I’ve learned that it’s a mistake to put all of my communication marbles in one basket.

And experience has taught me that the editors at Democracy Chronicles probably won’t call this article an example of disrespect or public shaming.